The 12 Chinese Animals: Create Harmony in your Daily Life through Ancient Chinese Wisdom

by Zhongxian Wu

* Silver Medal Winner in the 2010 BOTYA Awards Body, Mind and Spirit Category * The Chinese horoscope holds the key to a better understanding of self and others, and to living a life of harmony. Not just the year of birth, but also the month, day and hour have significance in true Chinese astrology. Master Zhongxian Wu explains how to find your power animal symbols, and how to learn from their wisdom. By fully understanding what each animal signifies, and how they relate to the major hexagrams of the Yijing, he shows that they can help you to find inner peace and live in harmony with family, friends, the wider community, and with nature. Using the wisdom of the twelve animal symbols as a guide, you will learn how to better understand your personality, and make choices that profoundly influence your health, relationships, career, and finances, allowing you to live up to your greatest potential. Making the wisdom of the twelve Chinese animals accessible to the Western reader for the first time in its relationship with the Yijing, this book will be an illuminating read for anyone interested in understanding themselves and their life patterns better, Chinese astrology, and the Yijing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Astrology

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2010

About the author

Master Zhongxian Wu is the lineage holder of four different schools of Qigong and martial arts. He was Director of the Shaanxi Province Association for Somatic Science and the Shaanxi Association for the Research of Daoist Nourishing Life Practices. Since 1988, Master Wu has instructed thousands of students, both Eastern and Western. He synthesizes wisdom and experience for beginning and advancing practitioners, as well as for patients seeking healing, in his unique and professionally-designed courses and workshops.

Reviews

[Matty · Rating 5 out of 5]

5* for multiple accurate parts
Had inaccuracies as well

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

At Chinese New Year's I always reread this book. Despite the fact that it is slender, and not very useful. The phrase that comes to mind when I look at this book is unmet expectations.

Guys, it should be my favorite book--why not? It squarely inhabits a big cross-section of my interests, to wit: Chinese philosophy, astrology, personality typing, esoterica, self improvement, meditation, ... But ... it also squarely disappoints.

Here's why: the writing; it is factual and uninspired. It is truth without beauty. I don't know why it never sings, nor ever speaks to my heart, but I have a gift for stumbling over qi-rich books and although this book is dressed up right it lacks something vital. I want to understand why I always feel empty after putting it down. I should not: it is well-organized, published on thick paper with medium-production-value photos, there are loads of the the usual five element-y correspondences, palmar designations (for palm readers), trigrams (for I-Qing aficionados), Chinese ideograms (for linguists), mudras, mantras and meditations. There is, in fact, so much ... it should be a slam dunk.

I think the problem is the language: it is written without spirit, by someone who probably doesn't speak English well, then edited like mad for grammar, but not for poetry; and the writer, "Master Zhongxian Wu" strikes me badly from his photo on the flap.

First of all, he self styles himself as "master"; who does that?

Second, the book jacket claims he is a lineage holder in no less than FOUR different qi gong schools and martial arts schools. Really? Four? Chögyam Trungpa (who was taken from his family at the age of three and raised on Buddhism) was astoundingly a lineage holder in TWO lineages. This is quite an achievement. So four? My sifu at Hung Tao Choy Mei would sneeringly say, "7/11 martial arts", as in: lots of variety but it's all cheap crap. So there's a bit of a credibility factor.

Third, I've done several of the meditations--dragon, snake, monkey and horse--and I experienced no lift-off, or any other pyrotechnics, to which I am susceptible during meditation. This indicates that even though I fell prey to the packaging the product is poor quality.

On the other hand, when I read it several years ago what I did not know there were also "seasonal" and "hourly" animal archetypes. The calculations for this are included in the book.


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An update--please forgive the chortling as I write this--yesterday at my annual Chinese New Year's party I left several books out on a table for my more literary guests. Later, when I was starting to clean up, a guest took me aside and asked me about the book saying, "You do know we were involved for a while, right?" Apparently it ended very, very, very badly. So, yeah, now I know a bit more about "Master" Wu, you could say I was right to crook my eyebrow.

[gremlinkitten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been into astrology for many years, usually preferring the more abundant Western zodiac because it's always been more accurate than the Chinese in my case. Willing to give it another chance, I figured maybe a new book on the subject, and the fact that besides the yearly animal, it also includes monthly and hourly animals as well, would enlighten me and prove my assumptions wrong. I'm sorry to say that they still don't sound like me at all, except for some aspects of my hourly animal.

As to the writing, at times it was overly complicated and I had to reread to make sure I got it, especially when it had to do with finding my hourly and monthly animals, luckily the chart is easy to understand. The descriptions of the animals aren't very in depth and they're repetitive, so it's not very illuminating and I've read more about them in other books. However, I do like that there are meditations that include a picture to show how it should be properly done and I probably will try it out.

It's a nice book and does help you find out more than your yearly animal, so it's a good starting place for those who are unfamiliar with Chinese astrology, but that's about it.

[Don]

Many Westerners have been introduced to Chinese Astrology by the ubiquitous placemats at restaurants that show the 12 animals and their corresponding years. This is simply the first step of a more intricate system in which the month, day, and hour of birth also have importance. Master Wu outlines the general nature of each animal and discusses how it relates to personality, health, relationships, career, finance, color, and foods. He also shares a connection to the ancient I Ching (Yijing) by providing the hexagram that corresponds to each animal sign, and he provides instructions for brief meditative ceremonies that include hand mudras (gesture or position). This book has received both the Silver Medal in the Mind-Body-Spirit category of ForeWord’s 2010 Book of the Year Award and the Independent Publisher 2011 Living Now Book Award for the Enlightenment/Spirituality category.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. Not only do we have yearly animal symbol in Chinese astrology, but a monthly and hourly one too (depending on the time of day and the time of month you were born in). It was a fun book to discuss with my family and if you want to delve deeper into meditation and inner cultivation he has tips for that too.